Only Forever
by Mercurial Phoenix
Summary: All's well in Sarah's life, but it's NOT always swell.


Title: Only Forever

Rating: PG for some Jareth-style innuendo. XD

Warnings: The Goblin King featured in this movie may be too hot to handle initially. So blow on him before consuming. :DDD HOW'S THAT FOR INNUENDO, HUH? HUH?!

Summary: Sarah knew she'd have responsibilities once she became a mother. Having to babysit her husband is one of them.

.L.  
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.L.

"Mother?"

Sarah looked up at the knock and the questioning voice, meeting inquisitive gray-blue eyes. She smiled welcomingly. It wasn't often her son wandered into his parents' bedchamber.

"Yes, Liam, dear, come in."

He tilted his head to one side, his white-blond hair catching the sunlight. "What does 'naïve' mean?"

Sarah blinked. "Why do you ask?"

Liam lifted one shoulder in a graceful, perfect imitation of his father. She had to conceal a smile.

"Father said this morning that when you ran the Labyrinth years ago, you were naïve enough to dance at a masquerade ball without a mask, and you almost got whisked away by a wicked villain with less-than-honorable intentions."

For a moment, Sarah regarded her son with a completely blank expression. Then her eyes narrowed slightly, though her smile never faltered.

"Pretty," she said firmly. "It means pretty." _And I am going to strangle my husband._

Liam digested this without batting an eyelash.

"Oh." He was quiet for a moment. "Well, what does 'las-ci-vi-ous' mean?" He struggled to pronounce the word properly

Sarah gaped at him. "_What_?"

Her son's eyebrows—arched exactly the same way as Jareth's—drew together as he struggled to recall his father's words. "He said the wicked villain had las-ci-vi-ous thoughts about you the whole time you were at the ball."

_Oh, Jareth. You are in _so_ much trouble._ She forced a smile and looked at her son.

"It means…ask your father when you're older." There was no safe way to explain the concept of 'lascivious thoughts' to a seven-year-old boy. "Why don't you go play with Uncle Didymus, Liam?"

Liam blinked at the suggestion—and the evasion—but refrained from comment. He bowed slightly toward her. "Yes, Mother. Thank you."

She smiled at him benevolently until he'd left the bedroom. As soon as the door closed, the smile became a furious scowl. Sarah rose from her vanity table and stalked toward the door leading to her husband's private office.

"Jareth, king or no king, husband or no husband, father or no father, I will murder you when I get my hands on you," she snapped as she flung the door open.

Jareth blinked at her from amidst a sea of parchment and scrolls. Accurately judging her temper—and his role in causing it—he tried a charming smile.

"Is something wrong, Sarah-my-own?"

"I wonder," she retorted, crossing her arms menacingly. "I might be too _naïve_ to recognize a problem when it comes to me at the age of seven, asking what 'lascivious thoughts' are."

She caught the barest hint of a smile quirking the corner of his lips, which only fueled her ire.

"And did you tell him?" he replied easily.

She glowered at him. "I told him to ask you when he's older."

"Clever of you, my dear," praised Jareth, and then contemplated the ceiling for a moment. "He should be back tomorrow, then, he's a persistent lad, isn't he?"

"_Jareth!"_

"Oh, come now, Sarah," protested her husband.

"_Don't you 'Come now, Sarah' at me, Jareth!"_ she hissed, and deliberately ignored his sultry grin. She refused to be distracted from her goal."'Less-than-honorable intentions?' He's only seven! You don't need to be talking to him about 'less-than-honorable intentions.' Especially not _yours."_ She glared at him.

He had the gall to look amused. "It was simply the truth. You looked so…_naïve_ that night that it took all my willpower not to whisk you away then and there." His eyes darkened with promise. "It still does, as a matter of fact."

Sarah snorted inelegantly.

"Instead you stalked me around the room like a tiger playing with its meal," she said drlyly.

Her husband smiled reminiscently. "You did look awfully delectable in that dress…" He leered at her.

Sensing that he wasn't going to be cowed by her temper, Sarah sighed and threw her hands into the air before marching forward and poking a finger into Jareth's face.

"If you ever tell our son such stories again, I'll act on _my _less-than-honorable intentions, and make it so you can never entertain your _lascivious thoughts_ again," she warned direly.

Highly entertained, Jareth curled his hands around her wrist and yanked her into his lap, nuzzling her neck. "My darling, you truly _are_ naïve if you think anything short of death would stop my _lascivious thoughts_ of you…" He nipped her jawline for emphasis. "…and my actions thereupon."

It took a great deal of her _own_ willpower not to melt against her husband's busy mouth. Sarah held herself straight, determined to impress her point upon him.

"My point exactly," she said pointedly, and was reward by her husband's appreciative chuckle, which vibrated against her skin and _did not help_ the concentration process. "Don't test me on this one, Jareth, Liam's too _young_ for you to be regaling him with tales of your…youthful indiscretions."

She felt him repeat 'youthful indiscretions' against her neck in amusement before he lifted his mouth from her skin.

"I wouldn't dream of it, my love." His eyes flashed at her and told her he _wouldn't_ dream of it, he'd damn well _do _it.

She rolled her eyes and conceded enough to relax against his chest. "I don't want to know any more about your dreams," she muttered. "You…child-seducing fiend_."_

She felt smug when he winced at the reminder of how young she'd been upon their first meeting. That is, she felt smug about it until he lifted one of her hands and bit gently at a knuckle. She yanked her hand away from him, blushing.

"But that one was _your_ dream, Sarah-my-own," Jareth pointed out, grinning. "Surely _I _have no control over _your_ dreams? Ouch." He rubbed his chest where'd she smacked him.

"Surely you have no control over your mouth," she said primly. "_Or_ your lascivious thoughts."

Jareth grinned wickedly. "As they're both so often focused solely upon you—especially in regards to pleasing you—" He trailed kisses from her throat to her lips. "—can you blame me?"

Tilting her head back to meet his eyes with hers, Sarah said drolly, "I _blame_ you for trying to corrupt our son while he's still at an impressionable age."

"Surely not," Jareth objected. "It's healthy for the lad to ask a few questions."

"Not questions about _sex,"_ Sarah ground out. "Not while he's only _seven._ He's far too young to ask those kinds of questions."

"You're never too young to ask questions," her husband denied. Sarah glared at him.

"When he asks where babies come from, you're handling that one on your own," she warned him, and was satisfied when he winced again.

"Now Sarah—"

"_Your own,"_ she repeated clearly, and dared him to argue.

He sighed.

"Well, perhaps he's a bit young," he conceded. At her smile of triumph, he added, "But the earlier he knows these things, the more popular he'll be with the ladies. And then he'll have a better selection of brides to choose from, and when he chooses the best of the lot, he'll give us a dozen or more magnificent grandchildren to carry on the family name and the throne."

His coolly superior tone made Sarah groan and roll her eyes.

"Lord help me if he grows up to have _your_ attitude."

"Takes after his father, doesn't he?" mused Jareth with unmistakable pride.

"I'll take after his father too, with a fireside stoker, if I have to," Sarah muttered, earning herself another chuckle and a kiss upon the cheek, which lingered and became a nip on her earlobe, which escalated into something unspeakable involving his tongue

"Speaking of stoking the fire," he murmured, and she couldn't help but laugh at the blatant innuendo.

"Speaking of lascivious thoughts." She turned her head and placed a soft, chaste kiss on his chin.

He hummed agreeably. "Those too. Save me, my dear." He gave her a piteous glance and wrapped both arms around her. "I have no control."

She giggled like a schoolgirl. "Mmm. Sounds troublesome." She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck. "I'd better take over from here."

"Oh, but you already have taken me over completely, my naïve beauty," Jareth whispered in her ear.

Sarah's eyes twinkled. "Naïve, am I? My wicked villain, I haven't yet _begun_ to take you." Her hands began to drift down his back, then slid around to toy with his buttons.

Her husband let out a husky bark of laughter. "By all means, take me away."

.L.

.O.  
.L.

"Mother?"

From her position curled up on the window seat in the library, Sarah looked up distractedly from her book. Liam was standing in front of her, regarding her solemnly.

"Hmm?"

"Are you a wench?"

Sarah stared at her son. _"Excuse me?"_

"Father says that when you ran the Labyrinth, you always were a fiery little wench, and that you still are," reported Liam dutifully. "I wanted to know what a wench is, and if you really are one." He blinked at her guilelessly.

Ten minutes later, Jareth was interrupted from his paperwork by his wife storming into the office.

"_Jareth!"_

He stared at her flushed face. "Yes, my love?"

"Did you tell Liam that I'm a _wench?"_

He blinked. "Pardon?"

"_Did you tell our son that I am a fiery little wench?"_

He blinked again. "A what?" But she could see the knowing gleam in his eye. It did not improve her temper at all.

"A _fiery. Little. Wench,"_ she repeated slowly, taking a step on each pause. "Did you. Or did you not. Tell our son. That I. Am a fiery. Little. _Wench_."

The last step brought her directly in front of Jareth, who lifted a brow, then looked her carefully from head to toe. She was leaning forward slightly to convey her anger, her eyes smoking, her cheeks flushed with temper, her lips pursed in a moue. Her shoulders were rigid, her chest was heaving, her arms were held stiffly at her sides, her fists were clenched.

His gaze traveled back up her body, lingering over her chest before finally meeting her furious glare. He smirked. "I may recall mentioning…something of the sort, yes," he drawled. "Whatever brought on this…pique?" He knew if he said _temper tantrum_ then he'd quite possibly have to sleep in his office tonight.

Sarah let out a sound like a scalded cat and stamped one foot. Stamped it, Jareth thought, like a petulant little child who wasn't getting her way.

The smirk widened into a grin.

"You _promised_ you wouldn't say such things to Liam!" Sarah wailed. _Wailed._ Jareth had to fight from yanking her into his arms.

"I did no such thing," he said smoothly. "The word 'promise' never crossed my lips. And besides," he said over Sarah's furious gasp of protest, "I said I wouldn't talk to him about lascivious thoughts. You mentioned nothing else in our bargain."

"I—I—"

"What's said is said," Jareth taunted his wife, and watched as the flush in her cheeks spread over the bridge of her nose.

Oh, damn it, that did it.

He stood from his chair and scooped Sarah up in his arms, ignoring her shriek of alarm as he started for their bedchamber.

"What are you_ doing?"_

"Why, taming my fiery little wench, of course," Jareth grinned, and kicked the door shut.

.L.  
.O.  
.L.

"Mother, may I ask you something?"

Never let it be said that Sarah did not love her son with all her heart and soul, but at those words from her precious boy's lips, she wanted to run screaming from the room.

"Yes, of course, Liam," she said warily, and braced herself for the worst.

However, his question took her completely off guard.

"What's an everable?"

"An—everable?" Sarah frowned, testing the word.

"Yes." Liam gazed up at her with those frank, questioning eyes.

"Where did you hear that word?" she asked her son. If it was an Underground term, he'd have to ask Jareth—even after eight years of marriage, she still wasn't completely familiar with the kingdom's colloquialisms.

Liam said, "Father was talking to Uncle Didymus today about when you ran the Labyrinth—"

Sarah's eyes closed. "Oh, gracious gods," she murmured, "please spare me from having to severely maim the father of my child."

"What?" Liam was frowning at her.

"Nothing, dear. What did your father say?" She braced herself again.

"He said that from the moment you laid eyes on him, it was 'an everable,'" reported Liam carefully, his brow furrowing on the unfamiliar term.

"I…see." She didn't. What in the world could her husband have been talking about? "It was an everable," she repeated. Then she blinked. "An…everable. Wait—_inevitable?"_

Liam's eyes lit up. "Yes. That." He flushed faintly at having mistaken the term.

"Oh. _Oh._ _Inevitable,"_ Sarah said softly to herself. "From the moment I laid eyes on him, it was inevitable." Well. _That _sounded promising, she thought sarcastically. She refocused on her son. "What was inevitable, dear?"

"That you'd fall for his considerable charm and debonair looks."

"Oh, really." Now she was simply amused. _Charm and debonair looks,_ she said to herself. _Right. Never mind that he'd just kidnapped my brother, broken into my parents' goblin-infested bedroom, and thrown a snake at me. I was too distracted by his 'debonair looks' to care about any of that._ She desperately wanted to laugh, but was afraid her serious little boy would think she was laughing at _him._

_At least it had nothing to do with lascivious thoughts. Or fiery wenches._

"Your father," she told him with a small smile, "is entirely too enchanted with own his 'considerable charm and debonair looks' to talk sense."

Liam tilted his head to one side and looked at her quizzically, as if to say, _Well. Yes. But that's not the point._ "I still don't know what an evitable is," he reminded her.

Sarah clucked her tongue and tilted her head in a mirror movement of her son's.

"Well, dear, it means—"

"Hello, hello, what's going on out here?" Jareth strolled into the garden and swung Liam into his arms. "Liam, my lad, are you bothering your mother?"

"No, Father," said Liam quite solemnly, hooking an arm around his father's neck for balance. Then he turned a worried look to Sarah. "Am I, Mother?"

Sarah lifted a brow at her husband. "_Something's_ bothering me, but it isn't Liam. It's about three feet taller than he is, and it looks just like him, except it's far more troublesome."

Jareth lifted a brow at her in return, his eyes twinkling at her description of him. He set his son down and put his hands on his hips.

"Oh? What's the trouble, then, Sarah-my-own?"

Sarah smiled sweetly at her husband, rose gracefully, walked to him, and kicked him squarely in the ankle.

"_Ouch!" _Completely taken aback, Jareth balanced his weight on his other foot and stared at his wife."Whatever was the meaning of _that?"_

Sarah turned to her wide-eyed son.

"That, Liam-my-love, was an evitable."

_(Three hours later)_

"Guess what, Uncle Hoggle?" Liam leaned his chin on his folded hands and looked down at the dwarf tending the small flowerbed beneath the windowsill.

Hoggle looked up with a scowl that disguised his delight at being referred to as 'Uncle.'

"Whaddya want now, boy?" he groused.

"I learned something new today."

Hoggle's eyebrows rose in interest. "Did ya now. What would that be?"

"Mother kicking Father in the shins is an evitable."

The dwarf stared up at him in astonishment, then threw back his head and roared with laughter.

"That it is, lad. That it certainly is."

.L.  
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.L.

"Mother?"

Sarah froze behind her book and squeezed her eyes shut at her beloved child's plaintive tone. _God, save me from my husband's stupidity and my son's curiosity._

She lowered the book and fixed a stern gaze on her son.

"Liam," she said evenly, "before you ask me to define anything, let me ask _you_ something."

Her little boy blinked at the sudden role reversal. "Yes, Mother?" he said politely.

"Is it something your father said?"

Liam nodded. "Yes, Mother."

Sarah sighed. Of course it was. "Does it have to do with when I ran the Labyrinth?"

"Yes, Mother."

_Of course. _Sarah hesitated, then scolded herself. She'd made a vow to go through with this. "Liam."

"Yes, Mother?"

"Do me a favor."

He blinked. "Yes?"

"Go ask your father where babies come from."

Liam's brows furrowed. She could practically hear him thinking, _But that's not what I wanted to know._ She felt bad for a moment at sending her son off this way just to torment her husband.

But…she got to _torment_ her _husband_, and she wouldn't have to answer one of her too-inquisitive son's horrifyingly clever questions.

She'd make it up to Liam later by letting him have an extra helping of dessert at dinner.

"Do it for me, dear?" she implored.

Her son paused, opened his mouth, then closed it and eyed her speculatively.

"Babies?" he repeated doubtfully.

She nodded. "Yes, Liam. Ask your father to tell you where babies come from."

He sighed and gave in. "Yes, Mother."

_There_, thought Sarah with satisfaction as her son walked out of the library. _That should convince Jareth not to tell Liam such stupid stories anymore._ She settled back down with her book, inordinately pleased with herself.

Barely five minutes later, Liam peered around doorway again.

"Mother?"

Startled, Sarah looked up. He hadn't been gone that long. Surely Jareth wouldn't have told him—

She paled. He would have. Oh God, what had she been thinking?

"Yes, Liam?" she said, praying her voice was steady.

Liam came to stand before her, but said nothing for a moment, only stared at her curiously until Sarah was certain that Jareth had, indeed, told her innocent little boy _exactly_ where babies came from. She opened her mouth to babble something like, _Don't listen to him, it's all a lie, he made me do it_, but Liam cut her off.

"Father says that it's different for each baby, but that _I _was an early birthday present from you to him, one he got to help make."

She stared at him, disbelieving of the fact that Jareth would give Liam such an…innocent, non-explicit, totally-appropriate-for-young-ears explanation. Then the hidden meaning of Jareth's words struck her.

"Oh my _God_." _The moron. That complete moron, I _told _him—_

She wasn't sure if she was relieved that Jareth had spared Liam the whole truth, or infuriated that he'd used innuendo—_again._ Color rose to her cheeks.

"I asked him _how_ you made me," continued Liam, and the color disappeared again just as quickly, leaving her face pale as wax, "and he wouldn't tell me."

Sarah felt relief flood her system. _Thank God. I didn't marry a complete moron, after all—_

"He just said you're very good with your hands," finished Liam.

She froze.

_--not a complete moron._

_Just an utter ass._

After a moment, Sarah managed weakly, "He said that, did he."

Liam nodded, his gray eyes serious. "Yes," he said gravely. He hesitated, then went on, "He says I'm to ask you about the specifics of the matter, because his memory of that night is hazy, and that your hands were moving too quickly for him to remember exactly what it was you did, but he said that you were absolutely amazing." He gave his mother another curious glance. "What _were_ you doing, Mother?"

For a moment, Sarah couldn't think past the roaring in her head. She felt her face burning, and knew her cheeks must be flaming.

"Ah. I—That is—I don't remember either, Liam, I'm very sorry," she said quickly.

He frowned. "But you're the one who told me to ask in the first place, so shouldn't you remember—?"

Sarah jumped up from her chair, the book falling to the floor, forgotten. She shooed her son out of the library and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the courtyard. "Go on and see whether Uncle Hoggle needs help with the garden, won't you, dear?" She hoped her son wouldn't notice that her voice was higher pitched than normal in her desperation to hurry him along.

Liam sighed, obviously aware that he would get no answers from _either_ parent today. "Yes, Mother." He turned and plodded down the hallway.

"Do have fun!" Sarah called out over-brightly, and when he was out of hearing range, she turned in the direction of her husband's office, a murderous gleam in her eye.

"I have a king to kill."

.L.  
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.L.

A/N: Heee…I want a Liam of my very own! He's cute like…like BEBEH AMINALS:D

Also, PLEASE. HELP ME. IF YOU LOVE ME, THEN SAVE MY SANITY. FOLLOW THE PRETTY LITTLE LINK (JUST REMOVE THE SPACES) AND ANSWER THIS VITAL QUESTION:

sillyangelfaery . livejournal . com / 5556 . html


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